Today a court in Mannheim, Germany, ruled that VP8 does not infringe a patent owned and asserted by Nokia. This decision is an important and positive step towards the WebM Project's ultimate goal: ensuring the web community has an open, high-quality, freely licensed video codec. Google's intervention in the underlying lawsuit (Nokia v. HTC) was a strong show of support for open standards like VP8.

I guess they'll have to dig out another patent somewhere to try and undermine Android, since Nokia isn't having much luck competing with Android by, you know, actually selling stuff. How the mighty have fallen, huh?

MPEG-LA and Nokia just want to keep them in court as long as possible and try every trick they can.

What matters is they delay VP8 adoption and have a chance at winning.

Why do you think Nokia waited until the other thing got settled ?

If it works they'll be really happy and can continue their H.264 (and older and newer) licensing tricks.

They will also delay the IETF process in the RTCWeb working group which deals with the mandatory video codecs in WebRTC.

Microsoft wants to support some form of WebRTC, but would really not like to support VP8 in their browser.

Apple also wouldn't want to be forced to include VP8, but they are, like usual, mostly quiet about their plans.

Their is no chance of "winning" here, everyone is totally aware of what is going on. Opponents have been trying to suppress VP8 for a number of years now, without success. VP8 clearly does not infringe on the patents of other parties, it is obvious to everyone. Nokia can try to troll all they want, but they can't keep obstructing a free open codec that is clearly in the best interests of the entire public and expect to keep any loyalty amongst that same public.

Nokia didn't falsely assert any patents against VP8 earlier, because they weren't a MS patsy earlier. They only "waited" until such time as they demoted themselves to the status of Microsoft's evil minions, and had to do as ordered.

If Microsoft really wants to support WebRTC they can do so right now, since it already is implemented (and it works) in Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Android. Even the code is freely available, what is to stop them?

Their is no chance of "winning" here, everyone is totally aware of what is going on.

Yep, they know it, but strange court rulings happen all the time. And Nokia has these patents in 20 or more jurisdictions.

Nokia can try to troll all they want, but they can't keep obstructing a free open codec that is clearly in the best interests of the entire public and expect to keep any loyalty amongst that same public.

The general public really doesn't know about these cases. It won't influence sales much. What they "want" to sell Windows Phone, I doubt most people who buy Windows Phone care about patents or free codecs.

Nokia didn't falsely assert any patents against VP8 earlier, because they weren't a MS patsy earlier. They only "waited" until such time as they demoted themselves to the status of Microsoft's evil minions, and had to do as ordered.

I think Nokia is like any company in decline, they'll try anything. Maybe they are even payed by Microsoft for this, it's possible. It wouldn't be a first.

If Microsoft really wants to support WebRTC they can do so right now, since it already is implemented (and it works) in Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Android.

This is about what the eventual standard will look like, not what is already available. I'm certain they already have running code. They just want to bend the standard to something they like.